The Nexus (16 page)

“So what will my job be when I’m not on a mission?”

“Director Holiday will find something for you to do.  Don’t worry, you won’t be bored!”

“Do we have time off?”

“Oh, yeah!  We never work more than six days in a row.”

“Can we leave?  Like, leave the base?”

“You have to get permission, but yeah.”

“We all have lives outside of the department,” said Mandy.  “The director makes sure this is just our job, not our life.”

“So what do you guys like to do when you’re off?”

“Play guitar!” said Dizzie without hesitation.

“You should hear the Lawn Flamingos—that’s Dizzie’s band,” said Mandy.  “They’re pretty good.”

“We usually get a couple gigs a month, or so,” said Dizzie.

“Cool.  What about you, Mandy?”

“Rawlie-boy!” Dizzie giggled.

Mandy blushed a little.  “What
Desiree
,” she emphasized the name with a glare, “is trying to say is that she thinks I spend a little too much time with my boyfriend.”

“Only if practically every waking hour is too much,” said Dizzie.  “His name is Broderick Sebastian Rawlings, or so he tells us.  He’s a lawyer.”

Mandy rolled her eyes.  “Other than that, I like to do photography.”

“Check out her room sometime,” said Dizzie.  “She’s got a bunch of her photos on the wall.  They’re amazing!”

“What do you like to do, Jill?”

Another question no one had asked her in a long time.  What
did
she like to do?  It had been so long since she had a hobby or a social life...

“I like museums,” she said at last.  “And I like reading.  Biographies, mostly.  At least, I used to.  I haven’t had a chance to read much lately.”  She laughed shyly.  “I’m a little nerdy, I guess.  Oh, and bowling.  I haven’t bowled in a couple years, but I used to love it.”

“No way!” burst Dizzie.  “The Lawn Flamingos’ next gig is at a bowling alley.”

“You should go,” said Mandy.  “I’ll be there with Broderick.  I’ll bowl against you, Jill.  But I have to warn you, I’m pretty darn good.”

“You’re on,” said Jill.

“I’m terrible,” said Dizzie, smiling widely as if she were proud of the fact.

“You’re also incredibly purple,” said Mandy with eyebrows raised.

“Am I?” she asked, taking another huge swig of grape soda and then sticking out her tongue.

Jill snorted, then busted out laughing.  “Um, yes, you are.”

There was more chatting and laughing while they did the dishes.  Then Dizzie and Mandy’s break was over and they had to head back to HQ.

Jill stood alone in the kitchen loft.  The only sound was the news coming from the TV in the corner of the kitchen.  It hadn’t been much, Jill thought as she dried off the plates.  It was just a simple meal with simple conversation.

It was also the best time Jill could remember having in a long, long time.  Maybe ever.

“...only fifteen years old,” the news anchor on TV was saying as she put away the last plate, “making him the youngest known fatality caused by the new illegal substance known to users as ‘hysteria.’”

Jill’s eyes drifted to the screen.  It showed a grainy

photo of a boy with shoulder-length red hair and a decent case of acne.  His mouth was sort of smiling; his eyes were sad, desperate.

“Police are still tracking the ring of criminals who have been smuggling the substance from the Home Planet,” the anchor went on.  “Officials believe the man ultimately responsible for the distribution of the drug on high school campuses is thirty-seven year old Robert Zinn.”

Now the TV was showing the kid’s parents.  There were tears in their eyes.  Jill couldn’t hear what they were saying.

Her vision was blurring.

She was having trouble breathing.

Unsteadily she made her way as quickly as she could back to her room.

SHE’D forgotten about the picture.

When she walked into her room she picked it up off the bed and looked at it again.  She stared into her mom’s eyes for a minute.  Then she stared into her own innocent eleven-year-old eyes.

She started to feel something she hadn’t felt in a long, long time.

Guilt.

When you’re an errander, you don’t feel bad about what you’re doing.  Sure, the first few jobs you feel a little pang of conscience.  But pretty soon you harden yourself.  Any guilt you may feel is buried under the hardness.  You need that hardness to survive, to do your job and not get caught.

She’d needed that hardness a few weeks ago when she’d worked for a client named Robert Zinn.

Jill stashed the picture in the bottom of a box where she wouldn’t have to look at it anymore.

NO one knew how the boss had lost his eye.  And he never told anyone.  He liked leaving it a mystery.  It would have been easy to get a glass eye, even a state-of-the-art robotic eye that would partially restore his vision.  But his black eye-patch added to the mystique.  The boss loved mystique.  He liked that no one knew much of anything about him beyond the fact that he was the boss, that he was a full-blooded Korean, that he was missing an eye, and that he was involved in almost any illegal activity you could shake a stick at.

He sat at a cluttered desk.  An old phonograph with a flaring trumpet-shaped speaker played a muffled classical tune.  He lit a cigarette and blew smoke rings at the ceiling.

The phone on his desk rang.  The boss answered it in Korean.

“That errander girl is here,” a woman’s voice replied.

The boss sat forward eagerly.  He switched to English:  “Good.  Don’t let her out of your sight.”

“I’ll be keeping my eyes on her, of course,” the woman’s voice said.

“I want to be made aware of the slightest problem,” said the boss.  “That that girl is trouble.”

“I’ll let you know the instant anything suspicious happens.”

“I’m counting on it.”  The boss hung up.  He sat back in his seat, blowing more smoke rings and wondering how things would turn out.  It was all very interesting.  Then again, most things the boss was involved in were interesting, to say the least.

ORIENTATION was scheduled for eight the next morning.  But Jill woke up at five without an alarm.  It took a minute to remember where she was, what had happened.  The surreal feeling was still there.

So was the guilty feeling.

She should be waking up in jail; instead she was waking up in a warm bed and a nice room and about to start an important and fairly prestigious job.  She sat up in bed, her mind involuntarily picturing a fifteen-year-old boy with shoulder-length red hair.  She’d been dreaming about him.  What was his name?  She didn’t think she’d caught it on the news...

Jill tried to shake it off as she stepped out into the hallway.  The lights were dim.  Everyone else was apparently asleep or on night shift at HQ.

She went into the black-tiled bathroom.  A leisurely hot shower felt amazing.  Then she put on comfortable clothes and headed toward HQ.

The elevator lobby was quiet and empty.  A line of light shone from under Director Holiday’s office door at the top of the stairs.  Did he always work so early?  Or had he even stopped working since yesterday?

She crossed the lobby and peered through the door into HQ.  Even at this time of morning there was quite a bit of activity.  About half of the cubicles were occupied.

Jill stepped out onto the concrete balcony that rimmed HQ, and headed around to the cafeteria.  She was glad she hadn’t come last night.  Mandy was right—too many strangers all at once.  She still didn’t feel ready for that.  It was good to be here early before anyone else had arrived for breakfast.  Through the glass wall she saw the empty rows of tables.  It was dark except for a little light from the back, where the kitchen was.  She could smell bacon frying.

She tried the door.  It was open.  Muffled sounds of cooking and orders being loudly given came from the kitchen.  She sat alone with her thoughts at a table in the dark.

The sounds of the kitchen grew a little louder, and the dim light a little brighter, when a swinging door opened.  “Who’s out there?”  It was a loud, demanding voice.

Jill stood up.  “Sorry, I guess I’m early.”

“Early?  Girl, you know what time it is?  If you don’t have to be at work you ought to be snoring right now!  I know I wish I was.”  A light came on.  Jill saw a big woman with smooth ebony skin and a ruffled apron.

“Sorry,” Jill stuttered.  “When should I come back?”

“New, aren’t you?” the woman said in a softer tone.

Jill nodded.

“You got a name, child?”

“Jill Branch.  Listen, I really didn’t mean to intrude.  The door was open, and—”

The big woman gestured for silence.  “You sit right back down there, honey.  And don’t mind my complaining.  I’m just a little grumpy, as usual.  That’s what happens when my people feel like they can take their good sweet time instead of getting their work done.”  She scowled exaggeratedly toward the kitchen.  The next instant she was smiling a perfect pearly smile down at Jill.  “My name’s Virginia, honey.  Named for the place I was born, Earthside.  Moved up here when I wasn’t old and fat yet.”  She boomed a laugh that jiggled her belly beneath her apron.  “Call me Momma Ginny, all right?”

“Nice to meet you,” said Jill.  She held out a hand, but apparently Momma Ginny preferred hugs.  Great big long hugs.

“So nice to have you here, Miss Jill!  I hope you get to feeling comfortable around here soon.  Now you just sit yourself right back down, there.  How’s a big Belgian waffle with strawberries sound, hmm?  And a little whipped cream on top?  Scrambled eggs and bacon on the side?”

Jill said it sounded incredible.

“Give us another minute, honey, and it’s all yours.  Oh, probably more like two or three minutes, what with all that fooling around going on back there.”  She strode back into the kitchen, rattling the swinging doors and yelling as she entered.

Exactly two minutes later she emerged carrying a big platter with everything promised.  “You like cream or sugar in your coffee, Miss Jill?”

“Um, I actually don’t really drink coffee.”

“Don’t really drink coffee,” Momma Ginny repeated suspiciously.  “I see.  Well.  All right, then.  A little orange juice, maybe?  Just squeezed it myself.  Someone’s got to get something done around here.”

“Okay,” said Jill.

SHE was almost finished eating by the time the other residents started filing in.  Dizzie and Mandy, bleary-eyed and in their PJs, were among the first.  They got their trays and sat down across from Jill.

“Sleep all right?” asked Dizzie with a sleepy smile.

“Sure,” said Jill.  “You?”

They nodded.  “I always sleep like a rock after an evening shift,” said Mandy.

“So,” said Dizzie, “orientation this morning!”

Jill nodded.  “Me and the other new girl.”

As she said it, Amber Phoenix appeared in the cafeteria line.  Most of the others were in their pajamas, but Amber had showered, dressed perfectly, and done her makeup.  Her hair looked like she’d just walked out of a salon.

Jill looked away and tried not to appear irritated.  “How does it work?  Orientation, I mean.”

“It’ll be different for you than it was for us,” said Mandy, “since you’re field and we’re tech.”

“Oh great,” Dizzie muttered.  She held a fork full of egg suspended in front of her mouth.  “Corey’s not helping out with orientation, is he?”

“Yeah,” said Jill.  “Don’t worry, it’ll be fine.”

“I hope so,” said Mandy.  She tried to look as sympathetic as she could.  “Dizzie told me about...well, the two of you.”

Dizzie finally forked the eggs into her mouth with an apologetic look in Jill’s direction.  “There aren’t many secrets around here,” she said with her mouth full.

“Forget about it,” said Jill.

Amber came over with her tray.  “All right if I join you?”

“Okay,” said Jill.  She’d meant to sound more inviting.

Amber sat down next to her.  “Ready for orientation?”

“I guess,” said Jill.  “I’m not really sure what to expect.”

“Me neither.  I’m kind of nervous.”

“Is that why you’re hardly eating?” said Dizzie, gesturing at Amber’s sparse tray.

Amber nodded.  “I don’t know if I can even handle the little food I took.”

Out of nowhere, Jill felt a twinge of empathy.  “I’m pretty nervous about it too.  Don’t worry, we’ll survive.”  She caught sight of Corey Stone at a table across the room.  He was laughing and chatting with a few other guys at his table, not noticing her.

“Well, Miss Jill,” boomed Momma Ginny as she approached the table, “I see you already have a little entourage around here!  Good choice of friends, too,” she said, putting one hand on Dizzie’s shoulder and another on Mandy’s.  “Two of our department’s finest!”